


the orchard

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Baby Head Trees, Cliche, Dark Fantasy, Fights, Light Horror, M/M, Murder Kink, One Shot, Some angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 08:58:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: Keith is a forbidden amalgamation protecting an ancient orchard bearing fruit in the shape of infant heads, and Shiro, an exiled black knight with a cursed arm, is in search of a home.





	the orchard

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Title: Cabbage Patch Kids
> 
> This is really out of my element, and I spent forever trying to pull this off, but it's been a fun exercise. It was a damn good prompt and I'm hard up for Keith's design. Jerk off hand gesture, y'all. Boys with horns will forever get me in the gut.

**i.**

In the spirit of unnerving fairy tales, passing black willows wrapped their limbs around the moon like a gag. There was no light, aside from the rare, determined firefly, and no sound except for the conversing crows overhead.

Shiro, breathless and starved, filled his lungs with swamp air and shivered. For days, he'd been slipping over muck and avoiding tripwire roots, meandering aimlessly through the Arusian Swamp with pell-mell thoughts scattered behind him. In fairness, his aimlessness was warranted. Shiro had no objective, no place to call his own, and for reasons he couldn't blame himself for. This went against his nature, which was to shoulder even his slightest faults. In fact, in Shiro's mind, it was simpler to blame yourself always and move on. This was different. Very different.

A crack erupted from his shoulder, and Shiro hissed when the limb jerked forward. Pain plucked his nervous system like a thread ripper, and he shuddered. A marrow-deep burn blossomed, and Shiro clenched his teeth, the connected fingers curling without his permission. He stopped short to foster his bearings and locked his stare onto his hand. He used _his_  loosely. After all, it was anything but his. Most days, it had a mind of his own.

"Damn you," Shiro muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut and his brow twitched. "Damn it."

The black limb was a symbol of his failings. Twice the size of a human arm with gnarled veins that pumped glowing purple blood, its glossy talons were dangerous thorns. Whenever Shiro closed his fist, he imagined the talons piercing his wrist. Shiro didn't know if his body would come to possess the limb or if it would possess him. This was because its veins crept up his shoulder and throat like lianas. They had gone as far as piercing an eye and dyeing it yellow.

" _Your highness, have mercy. The wench Haggar. You of all people should understand what she's capable of. I've been loyal to you since my birth. I am an Altean knight. I am your knight. You can't exile me."_

With an audience present, he could only say 'knight,' but Shiro had been raised alongside Allura. His father had been one of the king's few favorites, and Shiro had grown up racing the princess down the white palace's sparkling hallways, sharing tutors and laughing together at parties. Minus the official title, he had been a prince in the kingdom's eyes. Even though he was human, rumors speculating his union with Allura had haunted him since they were of age.

" _You stand before me with that arm, knowing what the Galra did to my father, and you believe I have no right to rid this kingdom of you? I can't trust you. We will never be able to trust you. You ask mercy of me, and I give it to you by not removing your head in front of the entire court."_

To think, Shiro had truly believed he, a mere human, could tell a demon queen like Allura what she could and couldn't do.

**ii.**

Dawn. Another dawn.

An infant distantly cried out, and Shiro stopped in the middle of the swamp, careful not to appear vulnerable. Monster or not, it was in his nature to protect.

The crying blossomed into many, and though the forest's shadows had deepened into inky impenetrability, Shiro pursued the sound. He was void of purpose, of direction, and the tears gave him something to hold. They sounded human, so maybe they would lead him to others.

Then again, crying children was rarely a reassuring sound, and he was a long way away from territories where humans peacefully coexisted with demons.

He paused, and after the selfish split-second of reconsideration, continued on.

Shiro's knee-high boots wrenched through sucking mud. His stomach knotted in hunger, but he ignored it and tried to rekindle waning energy. Never had he wished for an adrenaline boost more.

A crane sang overhead, but he ignored the warning screech as the children's inconsolable sobbing continued. The mire became solid ground, and with the swamp behind him, Shiro entered a forest of distorted trunks that twisted toward the heavens in ugly rotations. Their leaves were wider than his head and sagged in lilac bunches, but at a glance, appeared to mock chrysanthemums.

"Hello?" Shiro asked the woods.

The crying was nearby, and he turned on his heel to locate an individual one. Sniffles and hiccups echoed around him like wind through branches. How was one supposed to hear a single brushing leaf? Finally, Shiro located a distinguished one from the others, and he walked toward the source, fighting his nerves.

It took him a moment before he realized the crying was coming  _from_  a tree and not beneath it.

Had the children crawled too high and become stuck on branches? No. The crying was too young. It had the quality of a newborn, high-pitched with a larynx still being smoothed by calls for milk. Had a cult abandoned its children in the forest? Shiro's brow furrowed, and he jogged toward the tree.

"Is anyone here?" he asked again and the cries quieted, evidently aware of him. "I'm coming to get you. Stay put."

Shiro walked beneath the canopy. He parted leaves and anticipated the worst, expecting something negligent. As a protest against the Altean kingdom, a deep mountain cult had slaughtered its young and lined their bodies up outside the kingdom's walls. The leader had informed Allura the children were going to starve anyway, and it was better she and her advisors see what they had done in person.

The queen didn't sleep for months afterward.

A babyish whimper greeted him. Shiro parted the thickest cluster of leaves, and to his surprise, found himself face-to-face with a button nose leaking snot. Above the nose were two, watery brown eyes so unflawed they appeared black. He blinked at the suspended features and realized they were framed by both cherub cheeks and wispy chestnut baby hairs that shifted with the wind. The wind that was too cold for an infant, and Shiro's thoughts reeled.

Certainly, he didn't want to see the child left to exposure. Deciding the child needed to be warmed, Shiro reached beneath the head in search of her chubby armpits so that he could bring her to his chest for warmth. There was a problem, though. After patting, Shiro realized he could only feel winter-steeled bark. There were no armpits.

The head was disembodied.

Shiro flung himself back, heart hammering and beads appearing along the back of his neck. At the abrupt movement, the infant began to wail again. It was instinct for Shiro to return to it.

Allura had told him stories about such trees.

" _Father used to tell us to never wander into the swamp. He said there was a demon there that would catch runaway or lost children and bury them so that they'd grow into big fruit trees. The bark was so thick it would trap their souls, and the children were doomed to sprout over and over as food for demons."_

She retold the tale too many times solely to provoke his sensitivities. Shiro was rarely bothered, but his soft spot for children was the place Allura knew she could dig into. The Altean people loved to terrify their children into submission, which Shiro had loathed from a young age.

In mockery, he'd been called the Toothsome Knight. He was too sweet for his own good, and Allura had repeatedly lamented his black armor. She believed he was better suited for white.

" _If I hadn't seen you gut men myself, then I'd ask why you ever decided to become a knight."_

" _Knights aren't built on the guts of others, princess. You know better than that."_

The infant head hung from the branch by the back of its neck, cradled by massive leaves that curled in as if swaddling. It subtly bobbed with the wind, and guilt withstanding, Shiro knew he had to leave the cursed place. He found a holdup, though. He himself was cursed. Could he judge?

He also found it difficult to leave when thick tears were streaming down the baby's flushed cheeks. Even if the child was cursed, it was still a child. He figured he could calm it and its fellow fruits before disappearing down another pointless (and lonely) path.

Shiro promised himself he wasn't procrastinating or bored.

It was the right thing to do.

"Anyway."

He drew in a breath and braced himself. Not wanting to appear like a threat, he kept his demonic arm behind his back and cautiously approached the head. Above it hung more crying fruits, but Shiro could only handle one at a time. He cleared his throat and tried to remember how his mother had calmed him as a baby, but she had been dead for years. The memories were hazy.

Vaguely embarrassed, he started to sing. The song was about the stars and how human hearts were the result of them falling in love with Earth. It was aggressively sweet and something he usually wouldn't have even hummed beneath his breath, but since it had calmed him, he felt he didn't have a better option.

One chorus later, and the fruit curiously lowered its gaze onto Shiro, focused on him with spit bubbles brewing between its lips.

Shiro wondered if there was a way to rock the fruit without compromising its stem. He reached for its head and brushed, petting her scalp and watching as her eyes grew drowsy.

"There you go," he said beneath his breath. It took him a moment before he realized he'd found comfort in the coddling. Shiro hadn't had contact with another humanoid creature in weeks. "Do you think I can leave you and take care of some others now?"

Shiro shifted to the side to approach another whining head, but he didn't have the chance to raise a hand.

A cold and threatening  _something_ bobbed against Shiro's throat and pressed. With the instinct of a man who had fought wars, Shiro stilled. He didn't draw in a breath.

"Remove your hands," a raspy voice said from over his shoulder. The tenor was like water violently scouring rocks. Whitewater. It was whitewater. Shiro pressed his tongue to the bottom of his front teeth, glaring ahead. "Or I'll remove them for you, you fucking pig."

Shiro obediently lowered his hand from the infant's startled face. As he did, wailed  _again_. The wail startled the fruit's fellow tree-mates, and there was an eruption of crying. Shiro winced, grunting when the wince made his neck press against the blade and cut. He didn't have time to think, though. The surrounding trees began to sob too, and the urge to comfort each and every one of them compromised his fear of being slaughtered.

For no apparent reason, the blade retracted from his throat. Shiro heard the threat of a knife-edge whipping through the air and being holstered, and he exhaled, relieved. After a moment of perilous quiet, Shiro drew back his demon arm and spun.

_Oh._

He promptly dropped the extremity. Stunned.

As if the universe was mocking him, the voice's owner not only stood a head shorter than Shiro, but also, was incongruously beautiful. Beautiful in the way most demons tended to be, anyway.

With dense black hair messily bundled onto his crown, the creature's tousled tresses sat framed by two daunting horns. Sharp-tipped, the horns curled forward into thick spirals, and at a glance, were a sinister black known primarily to Galra country. Upon further inspection, Shiro realized the horns weren't black, but purple keratin decorated with hand-carved inscriptions. The carvings started from the points and wrapped backward toward the horns' hidden roots, but the horns were the only thing that removed him from human form. He looked soft, younger than Shiro by a few moon cycles, but it was his regal stance that corrected Shiro's assumption about his age.

"Forgive me, but I wasn't hurting them," Shiro said, not sure if that was the issue at hand.

Shiro was given a disbelieving scoff.

The demon's golden eyes, molten and narrowed, flicked toward the trees over Shiro's shoulders. It wasn't the time, but Shiro noted how his sharp chin and small mouth made him terribly pretty.

"If you run, if you attack me, then I'll rip open your belly."

Terrible. Definitely, terrible.

Shiro considered reaching for his sword or utilizing his new hand, but the creature's attire beneath his shimmering lavender scythe told Shiro's hunger-weakened brain to work. The demon was sporting armor that looked like it had been crafted in the bowels of demon smith's hideaway, ornate and unaffordable even for a royal wallet.

"Did you  _hear_ me?"

"I did."

The being's black armor laid along his body like scales. His high neck chest plate melded into moonlight skin, but his biceps were naked and defined, peppered with tattoos matching the inscriptions on his horns. Shiro glanced him over one last time. It was enough to catch sight of a pair of black pants that reflected the muted morning sun, giving off a matching purple sheen.

Throughout Shiro's gawking, the crying had escalated. Realizing this, the creature swore beneath his breath and decided to forgo a conversation with Shiro.

"You made them cry." He hissed and strode past Shiro with the kind of confident gait that snapped his hips downward with every forward step.

"I didn't make them cry. I stopped their crying, and you startled them into crying again by threatening me. Murder does that. Murder scares children."

The demon looked at Shiro, insulted and unwilling to see his logic. He snarled, revealing lethal canines, and turned toward the nearest fruit with a lax gaze. He cupped both sides of the baby's face and shushed the gasping head, again and again, brushing his nose against its forehead.

"What are you?" the demon calmly asked. It took a moment before Shiro realized he was speaking to him and not the head he was petting. His composed tone was for the baby.

Of course.

"I was an Altean knight. As a recent exile, all I can say is I'm a lost man. I have nothing."

"Impressive," he said, not impressed.

Before Shiro could counter his derision, the demon started humming. Instantly, the infant's eyes fluttered shut and it fell into a peaceful sleep. The others continued to cry, but they calmed.

The demon continued his thought.

"Either way, I don't believe you. Your arm is a demon's arm. If you were human before, then so be it. It's written all over your sad, lumpish demeanor, but you're no such thing now. Rather, you're no better than the demons who enter this forest and feast on these children's souls."

Incensed by the notion that he was a demon and  _lumpish_ , Shiro righted himself, expression stoic. "Arm or not, I feel no different from the day I was cursed. I'm still a human. I'm just a human who lost everything. What do you mean souls? These heads are souls?"

"Souls," he confirmed, unconvinced by Shiro's attempt to be willful. "These trees are lost souls of children who died in the forest attempting to run from the likes of the Altean kingdom. Many were going to be sold into slavery. Some were left to die from exposure. Most of the trees on this end are the infant girls unfit to be called firstborn."

"Why plant them?" Shiro attempted to remain unmoved. "Why would anyone want to eat them?"

"We plant them because demons can't guide human souls to the ether, and this was _once_  a prized food for my kind before it went out of vogue. For  _our_  kind, actually. Don't pretend you don't know. It's the single most talked about aspect among humans. The flesh craving. How we inherently  _feel_  it."

Shiro wrinkled his nose.

"What's your name?" the demon asked, fighting an eye roll.

Shiro hesitated, knowing familiarity would give the demon power over him. He supposed there wasn't too much to possess at that point. "Shiro."

"Shiro, I'm Keith."

Keith reached for another fruit, inspecting its drowsy smile. Shiro winced at the realization the child died before it could walk, but Keith's words didn't give him long to ponder its fate.

"You identify yourself as someone who's lost everything," Keith began, thoughtful. "Having everything and losing everything is a standard fluctuation in life. Sometimes, we live our lives never having anything. In fact, most of these children you see here never had anything except the care I give them. It's not your identity that you've lost, Shiro. It tells me little about you."

This humbled Shiro even if he disagreed, but he said nothing and trailed Keith. He paid close attention to the revealed skin along the demon's back. Keith's armor split along his spine and sank daringly close to its root.

"There are stories about you and these trees," Shiro said, unsure as to why.

"Are there?" He heard the creature's smile. "I've overheard a few. They're grim."

Shiro broke his smile in half. "You find it funny?"

"I do. I'm too old not to. Imagine if I didn't. It'd be distracting. I'd lose sight of my purpose."

There was a life lesson in that. Shiro turned to the nearest baby and reached for it, but Keith warningly darted his lurid stare in his direction. Keith's eyes tapered, and Shiro stopped.

"Why were you exiled?" Keith asked. As Shiro gathered his thoughts, he began to sing until the crying in the trees drifted away with the morning breeze.

Keith's song was in a language Shiro didn't recognize. Its vowels clipped and smacked against the roof of his mouth, but the words floated from the back of the throat in a resonant trill. The ethereal quality was peculiar with Keith's flawed voice, but it was pleasant. Shiro liked it.

"The queen has no tolerance for Galran demons. Emperor Zarkon's wench, Haggar, cursed me in the image my queen hates the most, knowing full well it would sever my ties to her."

"Haggar," he said knowingly. An edge scraped his next words, but he faked an unaffected air. Shiro was too polite to point it out. "She's celebrated for her cruel curses. They're tangled and obscure in their reasoning making breaking them nearly impossible. You are an unfortunate beast, Shiro."

"I'm not a beast," Shiro muttered, offended.

Keith dropped his hand and shrugged. Shiro wasn't making a stunning case, and Keith wasn't outwardly interested enough to take him to trial.

"Being a beast isn't always a bad thing," Keith said. "Sate my curiosity here. What do you plan to do since you've been rejected by your nation? Now that I think about it, it makes sense you came here out of all the swamp's landmarks. Humanity finds solace with these trees, and while I'm sure you need that, you're not a child who can stay here forever. You'd make an ugly tree, anyway. In fact, I should banish you now and save us both the grief. Me from having to raise you, and you from having to be – well, ugly, I suppose."

"There are worse fates than ugliness," Shiro offered.

Keith glanced away from him, incredulous.

"I'll take my leave, but first –" Shiro's expression matched his apprehension. His eyes turned toward one of the smaller fruits, and he stalled. "Is there anything I can give you in exchange for a map and food? Food that isn't…"

A literal child.

Shiro hated his desperation, but he supposed being honest was better than letting his rumbling stomach give him away mid-conversation.

Keith withheld his sigh. He stroked another head's chin and brushed the pad of his thumb along the baby's forehead. His blank stare was a ruse, though. Shiro could decipher that much. Keith was thinking, calculating the ways Shiro could benefit him the most with that offer. Demons, at their core, tended to be all the same what with their need to possess all people and situations.

True, Keith was guarding children's souls, but he still owned them. They were in his fields.

"You're good at calming the fruit," Keith said, distant. The light drifting through the overhead leaves created a shimmer along Keith's pensive expression. Something about his next words was pained. "They like your mortality. It connects you to them in ways I couldn't interpret for years."

Whether or not that was a good thing, Shiro didn't know.

"I have no maps," Keith flatly informed. "With time and a new moon cycle, I can summon you one. If maps were so easy to obtain, then you humans would have already attempted to overthrow these lands. I'll feed you in exchange for shifts in the orchard. Comfort, nurse, and water. If one hair is out of place on any of the children's heads, then I'll eat you myself. Can you uphold these negotiations? Are they simple enough for you?"

Shiro didn't have much choice. He cleared his throat and lifted both palms. "Seems simple enough."

Like bristling smoke, Keith chuckled low, the sound escaping with hushed breath.

**iii.**

The orchard's residency was a dark stone cottage on the lip of an unexpected bluff. It consisted of two rooms; a kitchen that doubled as a living space and a cramped bedroom decorated with the odds and ends of an infinite lifetime. Behind the main building sat a bathhouse containing one circular wooden tub and a shelf teeming with bottles Shiro didn't dare touch. The tub's water continuously rolled out Earth's steam, and Keith explained it never went cold.

Once Shiro was bathed and dressed in borrowed clothes, Keith showed him the narrow cot he would spend the next countless nights sleeping on. Shiro sat down on a low stool, and Keith assertively explained what they would and wouldn't be doing during his stay.

"It's important to soothe them. If they cry, then they draw in demons. Pruning, looking for soul parasites and treating illnesses are mandatory daily tasks. They're afraid of nighttime, but they love the rain. Storms are rare, and they can damage the trees, but they love them until the pain happens. I wake up before dawn, and you will too. If you oversleep or give me an ounce of grief when I wake you up, then I'll kill you and plant you and eat you."

The thread oddly empty, but Shiro nodded.

A corner of Shiro's smile hooked upward. "I thought you said I'd make an ugly tree."

Keith snorted and handed Shiro a wooden bowl of leftover soup. Shiro wordlessly began to eat. Only when he was midway through the bowl did he remember to thank Keith.

"Do you name them?" Shiro asked. Keith ladled more food into his bowl. Try as he might, he couldn't stop staring at Keith's horns, wanting to understand the carvings.

Keith arched an eyebrow, bewildered. "Name them?"

"The fruits. The children."

Keith sank. He pulled back his shoulders and steeled himself. "It's better not to. The only ones named are the oldest trees, and I only know this because the previous keepers left behind scrolls. They're also the quietest and toughest trees. I rarely visit them for more than a second."

Shiro blinked, not sure how he felt about the lack of connection there. "I see."

"There are many," Keith said, defensive. "I couldn't possibly name all of them."

As much as Shiro wanted to dissect the state of his life and the things he missed in the Altean kingdom, Keith's immediate workload made it impossible to sulk. He was given one day to restore himself, and like that was swept into the workload that was tending to not only trees, but paroling the orchard, working in Keith's garden and hunting. Keith wasn't much of a conversationalist, Shiro quickly realized, but he was good at giving subtle cues.

It was hard not to watch Keith and pick up on things, though. Shiro hadn't noticed at first, but Keith's ears were subtly pointed, sharp like the fae in storybooks. They slightly shifted with sound and emotion, turning Keith into tell all. Shiro had once sneezed, and it'd startled Keith so much they had stood straight up. For someone who said so little, Keith was an open book, and Shiro had to wonder how old he was in the context of his species' lifespan.

"You don't sleep well," Keith distantly informed him one morning. Until that moment, Keith had been quiet, eyes drinking in the unmoving landscape beyond his thin window.

Shiro, having already known this since he lived with the nightmares, picked up his lunch for later and didn't dare give Keith eye contact. "Does it disrupt your sleep?"

He pushed away from the window and tied his hair back. "No, but it disrupts yours. I can make you a sleeping drought that will help."

Shiro's mouth lifted into a soft smile. He tried not to react to his endearment, but it was hard not to. "I don't want to give you more work."

Keith reached for the bowl on the table and gingerly dropped an apple into Shiro's bag. He shoved Shiro onward, insinuating he was late. "Consider it a branch of my other hobbies. I've been meaning to ask. Do you know what Haggar might have gained from cursing you other than aggravating your queen? You realize that's powerful magic in that hand. She made an effort."

Shiro pondered the strange, sudden question, but he shook his head. "No."

Keith narrowed his yellow gaze onto Shiro, but it drifted toward the crackling hearth. He swept his black nails along his jawline in thought and seemed unconvinced.

"You're not just a weak Altean with zero demon sensibilities?"

"I'm of Altea."

Keith rephrased that answer. "You're not Altean."

"Does that mean something?"

"I don't know. Does it?"

Shiro lifted his cursed palm and paid special attention to its black love line. His forehead wrinkled as he attempted to recall his heritage, but there was nothing spectacular.

"I was her best soldier," he explained, forgoing his modesty. "I was the queen's best, and I never lost a battle. It made me a conquerable target."

"To some, that arm could be seen as a gift, Shiro. Do you remember what was said when Haggar cursed you? Can you remember  _anything_?"

Heat curled itself into a tight ball in the front of Shiro's head. Suddenly, he wanted to leave. He wanted to be among the trees and far away from their conversation. "No. I can't remember anything."

Able to read Shiro but unwilling to comment, Keith reached for his scythe and opened the front door. "Then there's nothing more I can say on the matter. Let's go."

Much to Shiro's preference, the evenings and mornings at the orchard melded into one another without interruption. Shiro found peace in the opportunity to maintain his dismissiveness toward his past life as a knight, and he even appreciated Keith's capacity to know when things were better left untouched. It was a fresh wound, and he didn't want to aggravate the injury. After all, he could never return to Altea. Infecting his days with mournfulness was a moot point.

"Good morning."

Shiro was a sentimental man, and once a day made a point to spend time with the first baby he had discovered. With consistent attention, her cheeks had flushed healthy and red and the leaves surrounding her had opened wide. Whenever Shiro approached the fruit, her eyes widened and she cried out for him in a high-pitched greeting Shiro dared to believe sounded like her song.

"Aren't you sick of this song yet?"

Against Keith's warning, Shiro named her.

He thought Ara sounded nice.

**iv.**

Outside of explanations and snippets of unproductive conversation, Keith didn't pay Shiro much mind until the first time the orchard was attacked.

It was after breakfast – a simple root stew Shiro had helped peel potatoes for the night before – when Keith paused mid-word and turned his attention toward the cottage's door. He had reached for his scythe, and in obedient form, Shiro followed his lead and stood, waiting for direction.

"I'll scout the back of the orchard for intruders. You patrol the front. Hopefully, we can rid the world of the bastards and finish chores before the wind gets too cold."

Shiro yanked on his lent furs, found his sword and stepped into his boots. He followed Keith's directions, and they parted ways to their designated spots. Shiro didn't know what Keith had sensed. He assumed it was energy his human simplicity couldn't grasp onto.

He strode across the hard ground and kept his eyes peeled, sweeping them over his surroundings and shifting his gaze between trees. Whenever a gust of wind rushed him, Shiro paused to listen for footsteps. He heard nothing, but rather than disobey Keith, Shiro patiently stood at the orchard's entrance. The only part of him that wasn't cold was his Galra hand.

A twig splintered, and Shiro defensively drew back the hand. Familiar pain pushed from his shoulder toward his knuckles, but he ignored the buzz around his elbow. Shiro's stare darted about, and it occurred to him how vulnerable the fruit was. One wrong turn and three could be shoved down a monster's throat, lost forever.

The mental image alone made his stomach turn.

Shiro hunkered down and hunted for moving feet. He quickly spotted two. They were red with three fat toes each, and in their entirety, larger than Shiro's torso. Shiro shifted backward with wide eyes. The intruder was unafraid of being found and confidently slid between trees. It settled on a tree wearing branches weighed down by fruit and revealed itself in its entirety.

A dripping maw meant for crushing bone and finger-long fangs were the first two features Shiro noted. Twice the knight's height and wider than three men lined alongside one another, its layers of thick silver armor were unnecessary to the point of being exasperating. Its wide black horns pierced the space above its head like spikes, and much to Shiro's dismay, its claws made his Galra hand look infantile.

"Not good," Shiro muttered. His brain cranked gears, devising and revising, but he stopped short in his thought stream.

Dread climbed Shiro's back like a fleet of spiders. He had spotted Ara swaying in her sleep, napping. The demon was perilously close to her, and Shiro realized he had no choice but to act.

It would have been smarter to wait for Keith, but Shiro had to protect his favorite. He sucked in a breath that burned his lungs and printed forward, casting grass behind him. As Shiro ran, the hum in his cursed shoulder erupted into a song, and it echoed throughout his body, shifting his vision to micro-intensity. Shiro wasn't aware of the glow emitting from his fingertips, but it painted the ground and his features, casting curious shadows that hardened his human softness.

The demon reached for Shiro, but Shiro careened from its grip. He flung his fist forward and screamed when adrenaline resonated, morphing his body into a belfry. On impact, the monster bellowed, agonized, and Shiro saw red. His knuckles tore through the demon's thick bicep, shredding the muscle like tender beef Shiro's tongue wetted to taste. Blood sprayed across the dirt, but Shiro didn't gauge his shock or the blood on his hands. He had never been as powerful. The only issue was he didn't know how long it would last. His brain was churning for a plan.

Shiro's eyes flitted toward the nearest tree, and his intuitive nature struck gold. He stripped his sword to lighten himself and straightened his fingers into a blade.

Shiro shouted an apology at Ara's tree and ran toward its trunk.

He slammed his boot's sole against the bark and pushed himself off, reaching for the highest branch he could realistically grab. Shiro spotted the beast's oncoming dagger, but he didn't stop himself from grasping onto the limb and following through with his plan.

Shiro turned his legs into a pendulum and swung himself toward the monster with a loud grunt. He freed himself at his greatest point of momentum and slammed straightened fingers deep into the monster's bulldog throat. Malleable flesh that burned to the touch surrounded Shiro's piercing hand, but Shiro wasn't in a place for victory. The demon's cool knife slammed through Shiro's armor, piercing his guts and summoning a cascade of blood that drained onto them both.

"Stubborn," Shiro raspingly said, smiling. "But I got you."

Power burst from Shiro's lodged hand, and the demon's eyes screwed in conflicting directions. Shiro slammed his arm forward, and his magic decapitated on spot.

The two hit the ground with an unfortunate  _thwack_.

"Idiot," Keith muttered beneath his breath.

Shiro was what Keith would eventually refer to as ' _ignorantly brave_.' At one point, long before Shiro's genetic makeup had left stardust, Keith had been that way himself.

With the demon's braid wrapped tight around his wrist and its head a trophy, Shiro laid on his back. He haggardly gasped for air, filled with adrenaline and unafraid of death. Dark blood pumped from his abdominals, and his body omitted pain. Keith, having quietly watched Shiro handle himself from the shadows of the orchard's opposite end, only approached his side to assist him when he was certain the demon was dead and Shiro had won his fight.

Keith knelt beside Shiro and stared at the mess, unhurried. He removed a cloth from his hip satchel and firmly pressed it to the wound. Shiro, vision blurred from stinging sweat and the body's attempt to cope, lifted the head like an offering.

"Fool," Keith said, but he smiled. "What do you want me to do with that head?"

"Mount it."

"You're barbaric," Keith said fondly. His eyes twinkled at the idea alone.

Keith had no mount. Instead, he staked it outside the front of the orchard as a warning.

With Shiro bandaged beside him, Keith admired his handiwork. Shiro, sobered and no longer driven by blood lust, found it ghastly. "Being a beast isn't that bad, is it?"

"It has its perks."

Keith's yellow stare flitted from the rotting head, and he shook his own as he walked away from Shiro. Keith laughed, and it was almost sweet.

Almost.

**v.**

"Were you born here?"

Keith heaved a sigh. "In this orchard?"

"Yeah. In this orchard."

"I don't know."

The two men were lounged by the swamp's rim, eyes on glowing fish that brought their starlight mouths to the surface in search of bugs. The twinkling effect of their mouth-gaping reflected the sky overhead, and Shiro dipped his human fingers into the water. The fish appreciatively nibbled at the pads of his fingertips, and Shiro puffed his cheeks out like a fish.

"Did you have parents?" Shiro tried.

Keith pondered the sentence in pensive silence. He leaned back on his palms and watched the sky. "I don't know."

Apparently, Keith didn't know much, and he didn't want to know much about Shiro. Unoffended, Shiro shrugged off Keith's lack of interest. He forgot the fish and watched Keith in the evening hush instead. As he tended to be, Shiro found himself struck by how the snap of Keith's gaze plucked him like a lute.

Keith caught him staring, and Shiro's chest throbbed. He tried to cough the ache free but gave up when Keith spoke. "Humans want to know so much without earning anything."

"I won't live long enough to forget where I was born or who my parents are. I have questions."

For reasons unknown to Shiro, Keith blinked and cut his gaze down, hiding a sad smile. He opened his lips and considered what he wanted to say only to tilt his head. Keith's hand dragged along the back of his neck, and he laughed. Before leaning away from Shiro, he laughed.

"I genuinely don't have answers to those questions. Do you have parents?"

Shiro was ready to answer. "Both are dead. The sweating sickness reached the kingdom when I was a child, and because I was close friends with the princess, my father asked a favor of the king. We were hidden away together until the city recovered."

"Were you born inside castle walls?"

"In the middle of the night twenty-four years ago. My mother told me stars were falling, and she and my father couldn't decide if it was a bad or good omen."

"Strange," Keith said and watched Shiro's fishing fingers.

Shiro smiled at the school of fish trailing his hand. "Why?"

"Falling stars mean nothing to my kind."

**vi.**

He didn't notice the long looks at first, but eventually, Shiro acknowledged Keith had taken an interest in him. It was a unique interest unlike their initial cordiality. One morning, as abrupt as the weather's changing moods, co-existing together had morphed into intermingling spaces and not blatant, even sometimes awkward, avoidances.

At first, Shiro told himself he was inflating the situation, but Keith's sparkly looks were persistent. Over the cooking fire, whenever he and Keith passed the ax while chopping firewood, as they inspected trees for soul parasites; there was always a glimmer Keith couldn't contain. Shiro wanted to be flattered, but Keith's interest terrified him for right and wrong reasons. Keith was a demon, and Shiro imagined that was complicated both background wise and immortality wise, but also, he wanted to leave the orchard. He needed to find his own life.

Would Keith's affection hinder his right to leave? Did that bother him?

"Am I doing something wrong?" Shiro finally asked. A soul parasite's freshly spilled guts were still soaking his gloves when the questioned tumbled out. The parasites were blue worm-like creatures as big as Shiro's human arm, and he couldn't have picked a worse time to nudge.

Keith's aggravation was palpable. His nose took on a faint pink color, and he briskly stepped away. "No."

"Right," Shiro said evenly and shamelessly met Keith's stare. His next words were intentional. Nothing about Shiro was happenstance. "Let me know if I can do anything."

Shiro had a feeling Keith's change in attitude had something to do with witnessing his fight with the demon. Displaying strength was attractive, but Shiro found it morbid.

"I'll make a note," Keith said, peeved. "You're peeling potatoes again."

"You always know how to make my night," Shiro joked. Keith strutted ahead of him in the direction of the cottage, and Shiro's eyes glued to the revealed patch of skin along his back. He imagined Keith bent over the kitchen's work table, knees buckled, and his throat grew hot.

It was that same night Keith grabbed his squishy bag of fermented _something_. Shiro had politely refused Keith's offer to share the alcohol multiple times, but that night was different. He was on edge. Shiro boldly asked Keith to pour him a glass after dinner, and

Keith skeptically looked at him and reached for a second glass. He poured for them and gave Shiro less than him. "Rough day?"

"You could say that," Shiro dryly whispered.

Shiro boldly took the drink and sipped without hesitation. The first gulp made the hairs on his arms stand. He ignored the awful, briny taste and continued to nurse the cup while seated by the fire. Shiro savored both the crackling flames and Keith's quiet company. Eventually, he shifted from the stool to the floor where Keith had also relocated as soon as he'd poured the drinks.

Halfway through the drink, he caught Keith inspecting him again.

Shiro told himself Keith's isolation was the only reason he might be appealing to the demon, but Shiro also couldn't pretend he hadn't been the admired in Altea. He was attractive in a way that had made his life easier. Getting out of trouble was always a non-issue in early teens. One innocent look, a small flirtation, and he was free. Thankfully, he hadn't been too mischievous.

"Do you like being alone?" Shiro asked.

Keith incredulously squinted at him. He didn't miss a beat. "Do people  _like_  being alone, Shiro?"

Shiro's nostrils flared. "They  _can_."

Struck by this simple fact, Keith sipped his drink and loudly swallowed. One pregnant pause later and he shrugged, swaying. Shiro smiled when Keith caught himself, embarrassed.

"It's okay. I think."

There was doubt, though.

Keith added, "It depends on the year."

Shiro whistled and leaned on an elbow. "I can't imagine life depending on the year. There are days when my mood depends on the hour."

"It's the age difference. I've been alive too long to have your concept of time."

"I'm not _that_  young, Keith."

Keith smiled and fell onto his back, dramatically sighing and letting his arms slide beneath his head like a pillow. "Talk all you want, Shiro, but you should be hanging off one of those branches. You're as much as a baby as they are. It's been evident since the day you wandered onto my property. Hungry and sniffling and lost and –"

"I am  _not_  a baby," Shiro said. He inaudibly grumbled several reasons why beneath his breath.

Keith loud laughed at the ceiling. "Why does that sound like something a baby would say?"

Shiro knocked back his drink and his hair threatened to float off the top of his head. He shook it off. "I was a knight. People were expecting me to be a king. I'm not a child."

"One drink and you're furious," Keith taunted, taking Shiro's wound and pressing it to a salt lick. "Alright then, proud human man. Prove it. Prove to me you're not a baby."

He stopped short and glanced away from Keith, not sure what he meant at firs —

Oh shit.

Keith mirrored Shiro's pose, propping himself up on an elbow. It was then Shiro became too aware of how Keith's robes were pushed up his naked thighs. Like Keith's arms and horns, his endless legs were also decorated with tattoos. Shiro had asked Keith what they meant, and Keith had described them as seals that changed his energy to make him gentler to the fruit. From how Keith's ears had flicked, the memory seemed like a painful one.

"Do you have something to lose?" Keith asked.

Shiro cleared his throat, appearing unsure. He inspected his cup's rim for poison. Keith had been so reserved and uninterested up until that point. It seemed impossible.

"No," Shiro answered honestly. He didn't have much of anything, but he did know there was plenty of appeal in Keith. There was plenty to want.

Shiro sat up, taking a moment to balance his body and mind. Level and aware he had been lusting after Keith since day one, he crawled toward the man and his impish smile. Keith, eager, was already rearranging his clothing, letting the shoulders slip toward his biceps and split open at the chest. The robes' fabric was dark blue and felt like a cold lake when touched.

"You're nervous," Keith observed, teased even.

"I could be 10,000 years old and you'd still make me nervous."

"Flatterer," he whispered and beckoned Shiro to hurry with two fingers. Keith's ears drifted back, and suddenly, he appeared impatient in a way far removed from his typical intolerances.

Keith, then stripped from the waist down, presented himself to Shiro without shame. He laid on his side with his legs drawn toward his lifting and falling chest. Admiring the smooth curve of Keith's ass and thighs, Shiro reached over him and caged the creature beneath him. He planted his monstrous hand beside Keith's head, and when settled, stared down at his dewy lips.

"That's the look of a feral monster if I've ever seen one," Keith murmured, tilting his throat toward Shiro to imply trust.

The mental image of Keith worming his claws into his throat and splitting it open like cabinet doors didn't faze Shiro. Rather, his body throbbed at the obscene imagery, cock aching. Shiro's breathing grew haggard, and he shifted over Keith even more.

"Don't be too afraid of me," Keith murmured. He caught the back of Shiro's neck like a lion taking a cub by its scruff and tugged Shiro down.

Their mouths slotted against one another's, and Keith's lips split a part with an indolent lick that Shiro helplessly mirrored. Keith's breathing hitched hard and honest, and he impatiently rolled onto his back. There, Keith invitingly parted his thighs and coaxed Shiro by taking his waist and insistently pulling, pleading with those golden eyes. Shiro slinked between Keith's legs and slid a palm beneath one of Keith's knees. He lewdly pushed back the leg and caught a glimpse of Keith's pinkish swollen cock bobbing along the man's firm belly, but Keith distracted him with the wet kiss.

Keith murmured Shiro's name, eyes heavy and impatient. He whined his next words. "More, Shiro. You're allowed to take more."

Shiro matched Keith's severity and reached between his horns. He took hold of Keith's hair and tugged back his head, digging his human fingers into the demon's scalp and savoring the way it anchored Keith. Keith wrapped his other leg around Shiro's waist but bit his bottom lip.

"You have no sense of self-preservation," Keith whispered against his mouth. His chest was splotched red, and it was creeping to his face. "Why are humans prone to this behavior?"

"Short lives," Shiro answered honestly. He messily kissed Keith's chin. "I don't have centuries to pretend I don't want things."

The answer's honesty inspired Keith. With matched panting, Keith reached between them and tugged up Shiro's sleeping robes. Shiro puffed out air he promptly sucked back in when Keith's fingers skimmed the underside of his cock, tracing a thick vein. Shiro glanced down, hyper aware of the muscular lines sculpting Keith's thighs and how they artfully attached to his marble torso. Keith's rapidly dipping navel possessed a hand-carved quality, but Shiro knew the muscles were anything but cold. When he pictured his tongue dragging along it, he imagined fired stones.

"Can't say I'm disappointed," Keith admitted and teased Shiro's frenulum with tiny repetitive strokes. Shiro fought his moan, and Keith pressed his thumb against his leaking slit. Shiro jolted along Keith's palm, and Keith gave a satisfied hum and started to rub through beaded pre. "Tell me, Shiro. Why do I have the feeling you haven't let many see you like this?"

"Not many demons," Shiro corrected.

Keith was unconvinced but was too kind to push. "Am I not your first?"

"Why did you pick  _now_  to be chatty?"

Keith couldn't help but laugh.

Shiro kissed the corner of the man's mouth but denied the demon his endless lip lock. Shiro's lips painted streaks across the Keith's jaw instead, and Keith impatiently shifted his hips upward, panting. He aligned their cocks, and the rawness of Keith's flesh pressing to his own made Shiro's hips thrust. Keith clumsily spat in his palm and encircled small fingers around them both. At the first application of pressure, the men closed their eyes and surged into Keith's tight fist.

"Sensitive," Keith teased, trying to stay composed as they fucked his hand. He squeezed Shiro's hips with his thighs and dropped his heels onto his lower back. "So fucking sensitive."

"I'm not the one sweating," Shiro murmured, low and husky. His tongue slipped along the skin beneath Keith's earlobe, making the demon gasp. Shiro's tongue traced toward the point of Keith's ear, and Keith gripped his bicep. "I'm not the one who's breathing like he ran a race."

"Repeat those words in five minutes," Keith snapped.

Much to Shiro's displeasure, Keith freed them. The ache building inside his belly blossomed, and he swept a hand down Keith's stomach, coaxing him to do more, to touch again. Keith tightened his thighs around Shiro once more, and not warning, rolled Shiro onto his back with a cathartic slam. Keith rocked his hips down in a possessive reel, and Shiro left his dignity at the door. He moaned, all at once aware of how powerful Keith was. How Keith could murder him. The demon was muscle and magic, and he wanted Keith to fuck him out using both.

Keith gripped Shiro's forelock and bent down, licking his cheek. "You're sweating. You sound like you ran a race."

Keith dragged his claws down Shiro's cheek and tauntingly stopped at his throat. He drummed his nails only to passively pet Shiro's Adam's apple. "Do you like being scared?"

Shiro shifted his gaze away from Keith. His stomach dropped, and he suddenly felt cold.

"No answer, huh? You  _would_  feed off of survival instincts."

It started there, and Shiro felt like it didn't stop from then on.

Be it in the tub or on the edge of the orchard, Shiro found time in the day to kiss Keith until their lungs were burning. If the mood called for it, then sometimes, Shiro would shove Keith against a lifeless swamp tree and take hold of his horns, commanding him into place. This was a game for Keith who knew he could tear Shiro's innards out with a single gesture.

"I could kill you," Keith reminded him, but he found the idea funny, especially when Shiro's hands worshiped him, gave him what he forgot he needed.

Shiro pointedly sucked the demon's bottom lip between his teeth and spun Keith around. He slammed his chest against the trunk and pressed himself against Keith, pinning. Keith scowled, bearing his teeth, but Shiro surged against his ass, grinding. Keith mouthed an amused ' _oh_ ,' and fervently rocked back to meet him. A hush built between them, but it escalated into melding gasps and utterances of the other's name. Shiro's teeth scraped along Keith's neck, peppering it with broken blood vessels and pretty bruising, and Keith's lethal nails dug into the bark.

"Here," Keith ordered and pressed his forehead against the tree. He parted his lips and fought a building cough in his chest he refused to see as a potential cry.

"I'm not going to hurt you – "

"Fuck me  _here_."

Shiro had never existed in such a depraved headspace before Keith.

It was escapism and pleasure Shiro once avoided at all costs. He'd considered it distracting. Sex made him less efficient, less focused on his goals. It could destroy men's lives. That said, the morning Keith throated two of his black fingers and happily choked on them forever changed Shiro's perspective. Keith had been whoring himself out on Shiro's cock since dawn, battering his hole purple and soft until the pucker Shiro loved to lick appeared. Only when Keith came from the sensuous licking had the good knight realized he no longer cared about 'distractions.'

He would never care again. He wanted to persist in the violent rut where he wasn't a monster but something someone could touch and savor.

"I knew you had it in you," Keith praised, covered in sweat with blood leaking from his bottom lip. Shiro's fucking hadn't slowed. Keith's labored breathing hadn't slowed.

Shiro always wanted Keith on all fours or vice versa. Shiro, enthralled for the first time in his life, wanted to map the terrain of Keith's bod —

The map.

Shiro remembered the map Keith was supposed to be summoning for him.

Selfishly, desperately, he hoped Keith didn't.

**vii.**

With the season turning colder, Shiro noticed Ara's energy dissipating.

Under the impression the fruit grew lethargic in cool weather, Shiro hadn't realized something was amiss until the other fruit continued to thrive.

It started slow, inconspicuously. Ara had seemed calm, her smile smaller and uncertain. Shiro had tried to remediate this by wrapping her in protective cloth. This only helped for a day and was followed by her reluctance to sing back at him, which Shiro decided was fine. He couldn't make her, after all. One day, though, Ara stopped opening her eyes entirely. Not even a new song would wake her, and it was then Shiro realized he had to confess to Keith.

"Come on, girl," Shiro whispered and cupped her pale cheeks. The rosiness was gone and her flesh felt as if it had taken on a harder density. "Are you sick? You can tell me if you're sick."

Keith had warned Shiro that if he hurt the fruit, then he would kill him. Shiro didn't have a choice, though. Interrupting Keith's pruning, Shiro pulled the demon aside and asked for his opinion. Keith grew hushed, solemn, but he didn't say much as Keith sheathed his blade. Shiro's palms collected sweat as he guided Keith to the branch. He could feel Keith's displeasure.

"I didn't do anything to her, but Ara hasn't woken up in days."

Keith approached Shiro's side, arms crossed over his chest. His expression remained unmoved, and while Shiro believed Keith would rip his throat for failing the children, he didn't emote.

"Ara?" Keith unfeelingly asked. Shiro touched her chin, and Keith closed his eyes. He exhaled. "I see."

Keith reached behind himself and grabbed the scythe. His expression was resigned, and Keith aimed the blade and swung with one deft motion. Hand outreached, Keith caught the falling Ara in an open palm and swiftly brought her to his chest into a protective hug. He parted his lips and looked onward, clearly at a loss for words.

"What did you do?" Shiro asked, heart melting down his ribs like candle wax. He reached for Keith's arm and dug his talons into it, not caring when he drew blood. Keith didn't seem to care either. Shiro's voice toppled into a rage. "What did you do to her, Keith?"

Keith didn't look at Shiro. He looked at Ara and seemed tired. "Sometimes the fruit doesn't make it through a season. We don't know why."

"So you kill them? I took care of her!"

"She was already dead, Shiro. She's been dead longer than you've been alive."

Shiro reached to take the baby's head from Keith's cradling arm. He lifted his hand to her cheek but was greeted by what looked to be bulbous apple skin. Ara's face was gone, replaced with smooth red flesh. The hair Shiro had slicked down multiple times were withered leaves.

He cleared his throat. Pride told him not to shed a tear, but his jaw drew tight.

"I took care of her," he said mournfully.

"This is why you don't name them, Shiro."

**viii.**

Shiro didn't know what to say.

Keith didn't ask him to speak.

Shiro replanted Ara, understanding he would never live long enough to see her sprout again. In that moment of understanding, Shiro recognized the limitations of his species. He would die, and he would miss so many things. He would miss too many things.

"The map is almost done," Keith said during the rare occasion they ate dinner outside. They were seated in the center of the orchard and the leaves were piled around them. Shiro had been caught up in grief, suddenly aware of not just Ara's death but the death of his previous life.

Shiro paused in the middle of his bite and lowered the fork. "How long have you been working on it?"

"Since you arrived," Keith lied perfectly.

Shiro cleared his throat, but the curt sound was unlike him. He relaxed his tense shoulders as his stay's end dawned on him. Shiro blinked down at his meal and then looked to Keith who was eyeing the very tree he had cut Ara from. His eyes were darker than usual, the typical dandelion replaced by an orangey amber Shiro could only describe as sad.

Shiro knew guilt. He knew guilt very well.

"I don't blame you," Shiro said, earnest. "This is a complicated situation. Humans and demons being involved, I mean. It adds stress. Different things bother us."

"It's not that simple. This is no place for humans, period. You're better off finding a tolerant village on the other end of the swamp. There are ones where demons and humans coexist. You would fit in. I would even write a letter of recommendation. They know my seal."

"You say that as if this place isn't full of humans."

Keith tersely spoke. "You have to leave, Shiro. It's for the best."

Shiro pressed fingers to his left temple and slowly rubbed in circular motions. "I don't want to leave you."

"You don't know me!" Keith shot back, and Shiro saw the impending flare. "You couldn't even begin to know me enough to not want to leave me. This is my orchard. These are my trees. If I want you gone, then I can make you go. This is my land to govern, human."

"Keith."

He shook his head. "I won't be the keeper of someone else's grief."

Above them were claustrophobic stars, and Shiro wanted to lift his palms toward them and push them off his shoulders. The weight, the airlessness, was suddenly unbearable.

"You don't know half of my grief."

Keith shoved a chunk of bread between his front teeth. "It radiates from you like a hot stone dropped into cold water. Don't fool yourself."

The hit was impossible to dodge. Shiro's eyes lowered. He didn't witness Keith's regret manifest across his face. For Shiro, Keith's words were a dignity muting label. He had become a bothersome extension of Keith's day. No longer was he welcome there, and that alone made him want to pack his things and leave that evening.

"Don't concern yourself with the map," Shiro said resolutely. "It seems I've overstayed, and I'll be gone before your map is finished."

There wasn't a pause between those words and Keith's reaction.

Keith's hand darted. He touched Shiro's bicep in an attempt to comfort him. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded, Shiro. You came here hurt, and the hurt has deepened by staying here. The children are easy for humans to attach themselves to, and there are years when I lose them in great numbers. It's a tiresome way to live. It's too much death for you. I never want you to reach the point in life where you're too tired to say goodbye. It's an ugly place."

Shiro grabbed Keith's wrist and held him. " _You_  care for them. It's hard for you, too."

"I've had years to care for them less. It takes too many lifetimes to reach the point I have. I can't give you those lifetimes. I can do so much, Shiro, but I'm not equipped for that."

"You are lonely," Shiro sternly countered. Keith loosened his grip, and Shiro reached to push back Keith's bangs. It was dark, but he could see the demon well enough. "Keith, you're lonely here. Don't underestimate what a human can withstand. We're resilient. We're cockroaches. If you're trying to extend your kindness onto me like this, then I want you to know I'd prefer to refuse it."

Keith sagged over his crossed legs and looked across the orchard. There were heavy stones weighing him down, and Shiro had a feeling it had plenty to do with the cause for Keith's mystique.

"Can we sleep in the same bed before you go?" Keith asked, starkly ignoring Shiro's preference. His expression was stoic, but his words were gossamer. "Can I ask that of you? It's cruel. I know. It'll only be for a little while, but I'll summon the map this week and then you can go."

Shiro couldn't contain his disappointment. It was in that moment he recognized Keith's age, and in terms of relativity, Shiro was aware of what he was dealing with. Isolated and too sure, Keith couldn't be much younger than him. He was easily a nineteen to twenty equivalent, and that thought seared Shiro's heart, scarring it on impact.

"I couldn't say no," he said. Shiro lifted his drink's rim to his lips. "A mattress will be nice before the journey through the other end of the swamp."

**ix.**

On a moonlit evening, Shiro stood inside the cottage and watched Keith summon the map.

Having cut his milking goat's throat as soon as he had a replacement, Shiro had frowned at Keith when he strode past him caring the gory pail. Now, with blood running down his forearms, Keith stood nude inside the summoning circle he had painted just as the sun slipped behind the horizon. Aside from laughing crows, the nighttime air was static, holding its breath.

Keith's weight shifted onto a single foot and his arms rolled above his head toward the sky. A blinding purple glow emitted from the circle and dyed Keith's legs lavender. Beyond the glass, Shiro heard chanting. Keith's singing voice carried in a way that reminded Shiro of the times he had used Keith's songs to locate him in the orchard. Keith had always been dutifully performative, unashamed whenever he was caught singing louder than usual.

The louder he sang, then the more babies he could reach. It made the job easier, and Shiro had adopted the advice. On the rare occasion, it inspired their distant harmonizing.

Shiro's thoughts were interrupted by a combustion of purple light. The windows defiantly rattled, and Shiro caught a grimy serving dish before it fell off its nail. He set the plate down and turned back to Keith who was no longer standing on the circle but levitating above it with outstretched hands, eyes forward in dangerous determination. Shiro had known he was staying with a demon, but seeing it was a sobering experience that lifted the hairs on his arms.

In a plume of blue smoke, a figure in a navy cloak and mask with three glowing holes appeared. Held in one of his hands was a massive scroll, and Keith opened his palms to take it. Words in a language Shiro faintly recognized were exchanged, and Shiro soon realized Keith was on the receiving end of an unprecedented lecture. When it finished, the two men gestured at one another as a sign of mutual respect. Though, Keith's mouth was drawn into a thin, unappreciative line.

"He is listening," other demon said in Shiro's native tongue. Shiro took a step back, having been effectively acknowledged and startled by the acknowledgment.

"He doesn't understand our ancient tongue."

"I think he understands enough, and if not, then you desperately want him to understand what was said between us,  _Keith_. Surely, he deserves that consideration from you. Surely, your mother taught you better than to omit vital information in the heart of tumultuous wartime."

Keith retorted, words filleted. "Leave my mother out of this."

The being gestured at Shiro the same way he had Keith. Shiro stepped deeper into the shadows, eyes peering at the floor in reverence. The slightest threat of a curse made his guts plummet. "You have only yourself to blame when harboring the human Haggar so loudly imprinted on causes you great pain. He is an asset, Keith. You're smuggling Galra weaponry."

"Life is not an asset," Keith hissed, the words tearing from his throat in a bitter rush. "I have summoned you and you have your sacrifice. Leave."

At those words, Keith fell to the flats of his feet. He gracefully landed bent over. The demon he had summoned faded into nothingness, but Keith didn't watch him go. Instead, he kept the map close to his heart, nails piercing the hide it was painted on.

Keith didn't move for much too long.

Shiro recognized reluctance. He wished he could convince Keith to compromise, but Keith was stubborn in a way that made bulls look like barterers. Eventually, night's orchestra commenced around Keith, and when he realized he had to move, Keith snatched his robe off the ground and pulled the fabric onto his trembling arms. Only when Keith stepped onto the front stairs did Shiro shift away from the window and clumsily slam the tea kettle onto the cooking fire.

The door creaked open.

Keith shut it behind himself with both hands, the map still tight between fingers. Shiro opened his mouth, but Keith handed off the scroll with shaking wrists and a hardened expression. Had wet streaks not lined his face, then Shiro would have assumed his quaking was due to the ritual's intensity. Desperately, Shiro wanted to understand what Keith was thinking.

He set down the map. The last thing he wanted to do was injure Keith by thanking him for the gift.

"Keith," Shiro whispered and grasped onto Keith's shoulders. He guided him toward the back door. "Tub. Let's go to the tub. Are you okay?"

"I'm tired," he said softly. It was the gentlest Keith had ever sounded. "I can't remember the last time I did magic like that. It was simple, but…"

Keith let the robe fall as soon as he was in view of the tub. Shiro lifted it off the ground, but when he stood, Keith's body had already turned the water pink.

**x.**

"I'll leave tomorrow morning. I'll be gone before you wake."

Darkness, silence and then:

"Will you forget about me, Shiro?"

"I should be asking you that question."

"I couldn't. Demons forget nothing."

Shiro cleared his throat and kissed Keith's forehead. He forgave his previous lies. "I figured as much."

"You were wrong, by the way. Humans forget so many things," Keith mournfully whispered. Shiro knew secrets were easier to tell in the dark. "They lose almost all of sensations of the moments they've lived and then barely preserve the ones they keep. They prioritize to maintain stable heads, but they're so delicate. My mother told me this. She knew humans better than anyone, and it was her one complaint. She loved humans, Shiro. She loved them."

Shiro stroked one of Keith's horns and let his hand slide down Keith's back. "It sounds like you didn't fall too far from that tree."

"They can be good. You're good."

"I don't know how human I feel anymore."

"You're wholly human." Shiro parted his lips, but Keith determinedly sputtered through the invisible tears running over his lips. His next words were venom. "You would have made a beautiful tree. I never want to see it."

**xi.**

Rather than wake to Keith's rooster, Shiro woke to smoke and fearful cries of pained children. At first, it swelled around him like a nightmare, but when the sense of reality docked, Shiro shot up.

Beside him, Keith was naked, sleeping deeper than Shiro had ever seen with a neck tattered by love bites. Shiro's head was still ringing with their mutual groaning; the way Keith's claws had scraped skin off his back and teeth marred his throat with red tallies. Had Shiro inspected Keith's nails, then he would have found dried blood and slivers of skin beneath them.

"Keith," Shiro said, and Keith's eyes fluttered open. He was startled to see Shiro still there, but Shiro didn't cross that bridge. "Keith, get up. The trees."

Shiro shoved back the blanket, and after crawling over Keith, darted toward the window. Beyond the glass was fire, roaring and devouring leaves and fruit with no thought aside from gluttony. Shiro shoved himself away from the horrific scene and dressed. Keith, teeth grinding, did the same. From the corner of his eye, Shiro watched Keith's armor meld into his skin with a slight ripple, and the demon swung his scythe onto his back with a determined tread across the house.

Shiro was certain Keith could have ruled the planet.

"Take out whoever did this," Keith ordered and pushed open the front door. "Then get the water. No mercy, Shiro. We kill all of them."

The two spotted a group of hulking creatures in purple armor. They were setting fire to trees with sick laughter that made Shiro's throat contemplate a gag. Shiro recognized their armors' color immediately. He grabbed Keith's shoulder before either of them could go in for kills.

"The Galra," he said simply. Behind the goblin-like creatures were three cloaked entities levitating. Shiro recognized their bird-like masks, and he sucked air through his teeth. "They're here with Haggar's druids."

"Haggar is here, too," Keith said flatly. "I can sense her ugly energy."

Shiro's black arm twitched defiantly. He clenched the demonic fist shut. As much as he loathed the idea of having the foreign arm attached to him, Shiro had started to reclaim the appendage.

Shiro looked skyward, and his brow furrowed. Smoke was spinning toward the blues and brushing the clouds an appropriate red. Around them, trees continued to emit devastated cries, and while Shiro tried to center his plan of action, he was running on emotional fumes. All he wanted was to leave the Galra tattered and dead. He hated all of them.

Keith didn't stall any longer. He reached behind himself and whipped the scythe forward, elegantly running across the orchard. Once noticed by the enemy, Keith stomped forward and propelled himself with a sweep of his blade. Shiro watched in awe as the demon's scythe barreled through the throats of two guards. Keith had taken down two foes twice his height with one devastating blow.

His shoulders rapidly rising and falling, Keith stuck his landing. He didn't pause long enough to make himself vulnerable. Keith slammed the scythe's handle against an oncoming demon's chest and pushed with all of his strength, giving Shiro an opening to take the creature out.

"Shiro!" Keith yelled, demanding him to do something.

His black arm pulsed with magenta energy, and Shiro ran forward. It sparked and the sinister crack drew the druids' attention. He ignored their watchfulness and clenched the massive fist, pounding its knuckles through the side of the demon trying to take out Keith.

The explosion combusted against a nearby tree in meaty lumps. Shiro ignored the wave of blood and pursued the next guard, but when Keith decapitated it, he turned his attention to the druids.

Behind the druids stood Haggar. Her long purple chin and sunken cheekbones had haunted Shiro's morbid nightmares for months. Shiro, knowing she was the source of orchard's pain, snapped before he could feel his sticks' resistance. He gunned toward her, teeth welded together. Keith shouted for him to not fight her alone and wait, but Shiro had a bone to pick.

"Boorish as ever," Haggar said, dull and weathered like a drought.

She lifted her hands and flung dark magic his way. It shot like black lightning bolts, and Shiro whirled himself away. The lingering druids haunted his every move, mocking him. "Humans like you think because you have an ounce of power you can stand alone against the likes of me. Shiro, isn't it? Yes, Shiro of Altea. You were given that arm for a reason, and your friend over there led us here to help you better understand why exactly that is."

"Liar," Keith screamed, but his voice ripped from a sudden inhale of smoke. He coughed. "She's lying!"

"What do you mean?" Shiro shouted, sweat running down the back of his neck as he continued to avoid Haggar's attacks. Shiro noticed the druids weren't helping her. They were flapping their robes as a distraction.

"That stunt he pulled with the map led us here. He knew too well it would. After all, all Galran magic links to our reserve within the capital. You're not the only one with double agents, Keith. You used unencrypted magic to summon a member of the Marmora cult. That doesn't go unnoticed, especially on the off chance you summon our mole, which you did."

"It was a coincidence!" Keith corrected her. "I don't associate with the Marmora! I'm not a blade!"

Keith stopped short at that, eyes flying open as Shiro took a hit to the throat. Shiro fell onto a knee, not understanding what Haggar was implying. Keith finished off the final guard before running for a druid's back. The robed creature disappeared with a loud blip, and Shiro watched it reappear behind Keith. Before Shiro could warn Keith, it lifted its hands and sent electricity directly into the demon's spine. The armor wrapped tighter around Keith to protect his body, but Shiro could still smell burning flesh.

Keith screamed but slammed his fist against the ground, freeing himself from the pain's hold and scrambling to his feet. Scythe still in hand, he spun it at the druid. The blade bluntly slammed against the druid's mask, and Keith stared the creature down with a heaving chest.

"Don't get distracted, Shiro!" Keith yelled.

Shiro shot upward and pursued Haggar. Behind him, the mask of the druid cracked down the center and shattered like a porcelain vase, revealing nothing but a shadow beneath its hood. Keith, realizing what they were dealing with, joined Shiro's side.

"They're distractions," Keith said and fearlessly slammed his blade into the next druid's face. With each destruction of a mask, the druid fell into a cloth heap. "Haggar is controlling them."

"Keep them off my back," Shiro murmured and stepped toward the witch. "This needs to be me."

Shiro's black hand opened wide, joints suddenly locking. The purple illumination intensified, casting shadows across his face and black armor. Shiro couldn't feel the yellow consume his other eye, but they soon matched each other.

"There you are," Haggar said. She was fearless in the face of Shiro's unfurling. "If you were wise, then you would return to the Galra Empire with me, Shiro. We could teach you how to properly use your arm. We could ease your transformation and make you a commander for our cause. I created you for this, not to lounge around with a Galra exile who has nothing to offer our mutual cause."

"This is not a mutual cause!" Shiro screamed, but his head pulsed with unexpected pain. The pain tore from the center of his head toward his mouth.

Shiro tried to ignore the burn along his gums, but it was unbearable, scream worthy. When the burn became his canines trying to be pushed free from pressure inside his gums, Shiro hissed and stepped back. One after another, the two teeth ripped free, and as Shiro spat teeth and blood, the newly made gaps were ruthlessly filled by dropping fangs. The searing pain brusquely settled, and an uncanny awareness of his surroundings pulsed through Shiro. He cracked his gaze upward and narrowed in on Haggar's waiting form.

Shiro spoke, but when he did, it was gruff, dense. "I think I'll learn the hard way."

"Fool," Haggar said, unmoved. "Then I'll take you home myself."

Keith, startled into silence, watched Shiro's transformation from the corner of his eye. Shiro's eyes had long since lost their stormy gray, but what struck Keith the most was his faded hair and the strange mark torn across his nose. Shiro was panting, on the cusp of a growl, and somehow, his muscle density had bubbled into thick layers Keith imagined it as a painful adjustment.

"You won't get near her," Keith said matter-of-factly. "Distance fighting is your best shot. I wasn't trained in magic, so I won't stand a chance against her either."

Shiro cracked his neck and rolled back his shoulders. "That's fine. Cover me."

Keith nodded, having faith. "Watch the trees."

Against Keith's advice, Shiro ran toward Haggar head on. He raised his fist, but instead of seeking to land the punch on her, Shiro retired the fears he had and shot upward with a leap. As he soared high, the trees cried around him. He utilized his rage for not only the children's pain but the forces that had ruined his life, and Shiro slammed his fist into the wintered earth.

The clearing became a crater.

Flying debris volleyed toward the heavens, and Haggar's scream sang. Shiro landed on a knee with his fist still firmly planted down, but his face shot up. He spotted the disoriented witch on the edge of the basin, and Shiro barreled toward her using speed he'd never known. Haggar recovered quickly, standing firm on her feet, and Keith shifted behind her in time for Haggar to block Shiro's high kick with a magic-shielded arm. Keith slammed the dull end of his blade against her throat as a threat, and Shiro and Keith stared one another down in unspoken praise.

Shiro stood perfectly balanced with his foot pressed to Haggar's glowing arm, and Keith's blade laid along her neck. It put the three in a deadlock that wouldn't end well for someone.

"You two are weak," she muttered. Shiro noticed the bubbles between her teeth, the sweat along her creased forehead. "Too weak to think you can defeat me with that meager hit. That weak blade."

Keith sucked in air and flipped his scythe. He pressed it to her skin and drew a thin line of blood that leaked downward in a clean waterfall. "I dare you to repeat yourself, witch. The destruction you've caused hasn't put me in a very benevolent mood this morning."

"You would kill your kind, prince? You would kill your kin?" Shiro's eyes flew open and Keith clenched his teeth, eyes never leaving the back of her head. Haggar continued. "Your brother is waiting for you. Your stepfather has been so patient with your time out here alone."

"Keith," Shiro whispered, swinging his leg down.

Keith jerked the blade to the side to decapitate. When the blade slammed through her thin throat, Haggar disappeared into a screen of plum smoke. Shiro leaped back, but he calmed down. Much like the druids, Haggar's robes fell to the ground in a final heap.

"Fucking wench," Keith whispered. His shaking palms threw the scythe onto the robe. He clenched his fists and then thrust his hands through his long hair. "Fuck."

For too long, Keith didn't look at Shiro who stood frozen in place. Finally, whether or not it was an excuse to diverge, Keith cleared his throat. He gestured in the direction of the swamp.

"She's gone. The trees, Shiro," Keith said, his voice thicker than usual.

Shiro didn't ask a single question.

They spent the afternoon carting buckets in silence. When word spread throughout the woods that the orchard was falling to cinders, the fish from the swamp's edge twinkled in sympathy and rushed their waters toward whatever they could, flooding and building waves foreign to swamps. Shiro promised them bread every day for the rest of their days, and they furiously twinkled back before splashing him with a single shot of water. Shiro realized it was a cheeky refusal.

Keith moved mechanically, pushing half-gloved fingers into violent coals and scooping up salvageable fruit for proper burials. The smoke dragged its fingers along his face, but whenever Keith hacked and tears tore down his face, Shiro fought the urge to comfort him. The scent of cooked fruit was too ripe and carried the same sickening pull of a carcass rotting in the sun.

When the final flames were snuffed, Shiro joined Keith's side. They had to hack off burnt tree limbs for the sake of the fruit living near them. It was too much for them to bear, to see where their tree mates had been so cruelly taken.

Shiro didn't mind the added labor. His heart couldn't take their trembling.

"My mother was the late Galran empress. My father, a commander she had met by chance, died in a war against the Altean's long before your queen's father reigned. Father was human, but they married. It made my eventual existence a stressful addition to my mother's ruling hand." Keith had started to speak unprompted. He slammed a machete through a branch and tossed it over his shoulder, suddenly yanking himself up onto a low branch as if he weighed nothing to himself. "My mother remarried, as she was ordered to, and to everyone's relief, she married a Galran commander this time. She married Zarkon."

Shiro vaguely recalled the tale of the late Galra empress marrying a human. "We were taught stories about this. Your father was a human commander, but our people theorized he wasn't human. He was too powerful."

"He was human," Keith confirmed. "He was simply a powerful one in touch with demonic energy and a passion for unification. My mother paid for his humanity dearly. I did, too."

"How did you end up here?"

"Prince Lotor," Keith said. Shiro's nose scrunched at the name. "You know him well, apparently. Of course, you would."

"We've crossed swords," Shiro darkly added, brain slamming the door in that memory's face. He bolted it with a hard exhale. "The Battle of Asterism."

"The one where the astronomers fought for viewing dens. I heard about that. Both lost many just to locate patterns in the stars. Lotor's white flag was humiliating." Keith leaned down from the branch, and his eyebrows raised in intrigue. He swept a look over Shiro as if seeing him for the first time. There was no denying the news combined with Shiro's new-fangled demonic form made for insight. "That's why Haggar gave you the demon arm. She wanted under your war queen's skin, but she mainly wanted to make you an asset to the army because you outshined Lotor's dignity. Zarkon and Haggar wouldn't know dignity if it pissed on their feet."

Keith righted himself and kept slashing as Shiro answered. "I suppose that's why, but continue with you. Prince Lotor is why you're here. How and why?"

"A full-blooded Galra prince twice my size and just as  _pretty_  was born, Shiro. I knew his blood combined with Mother's death on the field meant I didn't stand a chance. At the time, I was young enough to believe I could return with my own army, but as they do, ambitions change and we consider our lives versus priorities. I was still a child with barely any horns, but I paid a man named Thace to smuggle me out of the kitchen in the dead of night. He was a part of the defector cult Haggar alluded to before. He's of the Marmora."

Shiro stopped cutting and looked at Keith's serious face, his ash-streaked cheekbones suddenly sharper than before. Shiro digested the information and let his shoulders sink. "This Thace just left you here?"

"He tried to goad me into the Marmora, but I didn't trust them then."

Shiro reiterated his disbelief. "So an orchard instead."

"Yes. With the old hag, Romelle, who used to run this place. She died years ago, but I believed she left me with enough wisdom and strength to do what I could here. Clearly," Keith said and angrily slammed the blade through a dead branch. Unfought sparks rained down from the burning branch, and Keith gestured for the water bucket. "Clearly, I was wrong. I don't know how to begin to atone for this disaster."

"You're Prince Kein," Shiro murmured as if all at once realizing he had feet. He laughed beneath his breath and handed off the bucket, careful not to slosh on himself. "The books in Altea say you were murdered by Zarkon himself hundreds of years ago. Locked in a tower and left to rot, actually. It's why humans flee to Altea over Galran territory now. I was raised on the belief that we were only safe in Altea. That, only in Altea, I could thrive. These trees have changed my mind, though. They've changed my mind about a lot of things."

"It's who your parents knew, Shiro. Neither kingdom is all that tolerant of humans, which I will never understand. Primitive as we might think they are; humans have an immense capacity I'm still trying to better understand. Demons have magic, but what else?"

Shiro's expression softened. "Humans are known to be horribly cruel, too, Keith."

"Not from birth," Keith countered. He repeated himself, but his voice softened. "Not from birth."

"Was your mother cruel?"

"No," Keith said easily. He poured the water on the flame, not minding how it splashed onto his thighs. "Some would say she's dead because of it. Alteans are essentially the closest to humans among demonkind, but look at what your queen did to protect herself. She threw aside her best friend. She understood what she had to do."

There wasn't consistent logic throughout Keith's views on humans versus demons, but Shiro didn't lack the emotional intelligence to push Keith while he grieved. As they pruned in attentive silence, Shiro decided he had a final thought on the many revelations. He stopped mid-cut and looked at Keith who had only climbed higher.

"You'd be a good emperor," Shiro said.

Keith paused and looked down at Shiro who was gazing at him in admiration. Keith said nothing, lips set thin. All at once, the rubbish Keith had been collecting on the branch beside him fell on top of Shiro in a single, unforgiving pile.

"I don't want your poetic ideations right now, Shiro. That's my only issue with you humans. You're all idealists in the worst way and at the worst times."

Shiro exhaled with a smile, and Keith dropped another branch on top of his head.

"Not the time!" Keith shouted.

"I have a feeling it could be 10,000 years from now, and it wouldn't be the time."

**xii.**

At the end of the longest day Shiro could recall since his last blood-smeared battle, the wreckage settled around them like undisturbed dust.

Shiro knelt down and pushed his fingers into ash, doing his best not to mourn openly, but he felt it was more inappropriate not to. As the cool debris ran through his fingers like sand, he looked up at Keith whose teeth were no longer grinding. Keith shook his head and swept his fingers through his hair, stopping to hold the base of his horns. Keith closed his eyes.

"There's nothing more we can do," Shiro calmly informed him. "What's smoking will die out overnight. The earth is too wet for it to spread."

"This will take years to recover," Keith tersely whispered. Shiro had a feeling he might have meant more than the land and souls. "I'm going to be dealing with this for years. Haggar will come back for you. She could easily decide to come back and kill me, and then there's the traitor within the Marmora cult I'm now responsible for."

"I'll leave as soon as the trees have been cleaned. There's still the other half to do, and I can't let you do that alone after I caused this," Shiro said, guilty.

"You didn't cause this, Shiro. I hadn't used summoning magic in years and left my energy unguarded, forgetting the Galra trace all magic, especially their kind's magic. Everything is too uncertain," Keith cryptically admitted. His defeat echoed like a pin dropped inside a quiet chapel. "We have the map. It's accurate, too, and I can no longer stay here myself."

Shiro's arms stiffened. "What do you mean you can't stay here?"

"We wake early. We clean the trees, and then we go. I'll rifle through my sources this evening and call upon someone who might be able to care for this orchard. Possibly, I'll contact Kolivan, but he's difficult to summon under a dead moon. I've only done it once before."

The man had taken on an air Shiro knew too well. Shiro himself had once trekked across encampments with a stern face and his agenda blanketing his heart. It guarded him against the dead. It made him feel as if he was making an effort in the name of the web of lives each battle changed.

Keith adjusted his scythe and looked toward the stars, searching for something Shiro didn't understand. He exhaled, frustrated. "Kolivan needs to know there's a traitor among his kind. Every second could incite more devastation. I know I can't summon, but we're going to have to find the Marmora before it's too late."

"This Kolivan," Shiro said and looked starward beside Keith. A shooting star slashed a wound across the sky, and Shiro made a private wish. "What does he stand for within the Marmora?"

"He heads the cult," Keith said. His sharp eyes flicked between constellations. "The Marmora seek to free their people and the  _allies_  Zarkon collected. They're Galra tired of war, but as Galra, the most qualified to break the Empire's already rotted support beams. Few know of them outside the Empire's higher ups, but retaliation is muted no matter how threatening it is. They don't want rebels to  _inspire_  others."

Keith walked forward. He didn't lower his gaze, still hunting the sky. Shiro preferred to watch Keith speak than stargaze. After a pause, Shiro asked, "Do you have faith in them?"

"I do," Keith said, but his next words drifted from his lips, surly and agitated. "What bothers me is that they have faith in me. Thace will be self-satisfied seeing me leave this place behind."

Shiro rolled his head to the side. He feigned inspecting his black talons. "Almost as if my ideations aren't ideations. Almost as if there's something about your disposition that makes for an incredible plus."

Keith blew a raspberry, and Shiro reached for his bicep with a hushed laugh. The sound drifted away, and Keith dropped his eyes from the stars. He looked at Shiro, seemingly waiting.

Shiro parted his lips, but he knew he couldn't give Keith the advice he needed right then. "War doesn't ask for our permission, Keith."

"I don't want to be involved with this war," Keith said, almost unfeeling. "I shed the empire like a skin."

"You shed the skin for a newer, healthier one," Shiro offered. "You're not helping the empire. You're helping innocent people the way you're inclined to help these children."

Keith didn't dare reply.

Together, they entered the cottage with its hanging dried mushrooms, low wooden stools, and dead cooking hearth.

Keith approached the bookshelf and popped open its glass doors. He ran his fingers along the spines, mouthing titles, and then plucked a book with a determined leer. Shiro wasn't given an explanation. Rather, Keith snatched a small vial of something dark green off a nearby shelf and retreated to the orchard's pit. When the front door slammed behind him, Shiro could have sworn he heard Keith cathartically scream.

"Doesn't that just sum it up?" Shiro said to no one.

Shiro carded his demon hand through his hair and looked around himself. For the first time that day, it was quiet.

He withdrew into a meditation where he became aware of his current life and what it had boiled down to. Before Shiro had been salt water inside a heated cauldron, roiling beneath the open heavens and afraid of his dwindling space inside the pot, but as the evaporation continued and granules appeared, Shiro realized he still had substance. He was more than the space he had once occupied.

Startled by this calm, Shiro blinked through his smoke-dried eyes and began to pack Keith's and his belongings. He could have gone home and pleaded his case to Allura, and there was still room for that negotiation and understanding, but Shiro had taken the path less traveled and continued down it. He didn't see himself turning back anytime soon.

Shiro finished packing and took a seat at Keith's vanity. Now that he knew Keith had inherited the cottage, Shiro decided its existence in the bedroom made more sense and wasn't the keeper of Keith's hidden narcissism. During the fight, he had sensed his appearance changing. His canines, which he hadn't stopped licking, being the clue.

Shiro yanked down the sheet draping the mirror. Age-speckled glass glared back at him. Shiro found himself through the mirror's imperfections and gave himself determined eye contact.

Both eyes were as yellow as daffodils, and across the bridge of his nose, a black stripe that wormed across his face like a scar laid heavy and permanent. Shiro reached for the edge of the mirror to steady himself, but he noticed the demon hand and quickly withdrew it. Harshly inhaling, he looked on and touched the fresh, hoary chunk that had woven through his bangs.

It felt like hair. He felt like Shiro. Maybe he felt stronger, but he couldn't cling to that yet. He wasn't sure if the cost of that power would ever balance out its supposed benefits.

Shiro inspected his dagger teeth, drawing back his lips to press fingers to the tender gums and ensure their stability. Eventually, after some time, Keith appeared over his shoulder in the reflection.

"How does it feel to be a beast?" he asked again. Shiro was startled by the tasteless joke, by Keith's unprecedented tight-lipped smile.

"It feels…" Shiro dwelled on his mismatched thoughts. He considered Keith's strong sentiment for humans and his strange ambivalence for demons even though he had routinely made a point to address Shiro's perspective on being a 'beast.' He smiled at Keith in the mirror. "It feels fine."

"And here I expected a gilt-edged reply," Keith said. The demon sluggishly pushed himself away from the door frame. He began to strip pieces of sentient armor, letting them fall onto the floor. "I'm going to bathe."

"Did you find someone for the orchard?"

"Yes," Keith dismissively replied. "Lance is his name. He's a nearby swamp nymph. The one who helped put out the fires today. You kept fondling him in the pond and then had the nerve to eye me. Some chivalry you have, Shiro."

Keith's words dissipated as he walked toward the bathhouse, and Shiro couldn't see his shrewd expression. When Keith flicked a look over his shoulder, it was entirely void of interest.

"Wait –" Shiro halted on that and stood. The bench he had been seated on flew backward. "I never fondled anyone that wasn't you. Keith, what do you mean?"

The demon loudly sighed.

Shiro nearly tripped over the bench's belly up legs trying to chase Keith. Like a crash of the very water that assisted them, Shiro pieced together the implications.

"The fish! Lance is the fish?"

Even with the weight of that day's sorrows, Keith managed laughter that vined up his chest, blossoming along his lips with vermillion petals. Shiro stopped short at the sound. He didn't have time to savor its simplicity, though. Keith pointed toward the bathhouse's door with his head, and Shiro jogged after him.

"I can't believe you offered him bread crumbs," Keith said, laughter loudening. He leaned over the tub's edge and wiped up a tear.

"Keith, I didn't know! Should I apologize? I can go right now."

"Please don't!" Keith begged. "Do us both the favor and never do. I want him to sulk about it for the rest of his life."

Guilty for the hundredth time that day, Shiro sank into the bathtub with Keith. He sulked at Keith's refusal to let him apologize to Lance and blew bubbles along the surface.

"So," Keith said, seemingly uninterested in his own words. He started to slip beneath the water's surface, eyes trained to the right. Shiro barely caught Keith's next sentence before the demon submerged himself. "How  _does_  one build an army?"


End file.
